Kashmiri Chai

I was craving this one last night. I still had my chocolate covered graham crackers (so easy to make! Take 4 graham crackers and put them on parchment paper. Melt 1/2 c chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate squares – whatever you have on hand – and smear/drizzle onto your grahams. If you wish you could add chopped nuts whilst the chocolate is still wet (but I did not – but I’m thinkin’ pecans!) let them cool a bit, then put them in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes to set.)

So, yes, the Chai! I made it stovetop (1c milk, 1c water, 4 tsp Kashmiri chai, simmer 9 min, let sit 1, strain into two cups with as much honey as you enjoy sitting in them) and got out my serving tray and put two cups of this delicious elixir on it with a chocolate covered graham cracker each on a pretty china plate. It was soooooo good together. A childhood treat made adult and delicious for mere pennies! The creamy gently spiced Chai went so well with the Chocolate graham – just one each! They are very rich. Heaven after a long busy workweek.

One of the things I adore about this chai is that it is so gently spiced that it doesn’t seem just Wintery – it is something I can enjoy all year around. Not only are the spices light (no pepper!) but the mix of green and black teas lighten it further. One of my Big Tea Loves, one of my Keepers, one of my Order the BIG Bag teas :)

So I decided I wanted to make some chai over the stove, and I chose this tea for it. WOW! Over the stove top is a lot better than brewing it in a cup! I added more milk to it since the brew was very dark. The cinnamon stench was becoming more subdued - THANK GOODNESS!!!

I love watching the cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon dancing around with the black tea leaves. Very pretty to watch. I love how my entire house turned into a warm, cinnamon haven! Yum! This is perfect for autumn. When I tasted it, the creamy milk mixed with the spices were a delight. I could still taste the spice oil or cinnamon oil Golden Moon Tea decided to place unnecessarily, but it wasn’t as alarming. This chai blend is still not my favorite since I adore chai that is predominantly cardamom and almost no cinnamon.

Last month Amanda sent me a sample of this and I ended up really liking it – so much that I broke down and bought a half a pound of this offering from Golden Moon. Took advantage of a free shipping promo so I could justify it’s purchase! :) I really love that there isn’t any pepper in this blend, but it’s rather cinnamony and spicy from the cloves and cardamon.

So this time I prepared it as a concentrated chai syrup so that I can just add it to milk when the mood strikes. Here’s what I did:

Brought 2 cups of water and 1 1/3 cup of sweetener to a rolling boil in a saucepan. Let it boil for about 3 minutes to let the sugar & rock sugar combination fully dissolve. Then I added 6 tablespoons of the Kashmiri chai dry leaf, letting it steep for 5 minutes. Strained the leaf from the concentrate and let cool in a swing top glass bottle. When cool, refrigerate.

Now I can have a delicious iced chai latte with a fraction of the work!

Oh my god. I think I’m in LOVE.

I’ve been wanting to try chai, but I didn’t know how, and frankly, the process can seem somewhat intimidating. But takgoti and Auggy really broke it down for me, and I ended up using takgoti’s super-long chai special process (which I think is really close to Samovar’s, but what do I know?). Anyway, when I opened the packet of Kashmiri, my nose did a dance and then died from happiness. It’s so rich and spicy-smelling and warm and inviting. I can smell the cloves and cinnamon and cardamom. And it all smells like a heavenly mixture of wonderful.

I used the entire packet for this one, and followed takgoti’s brewing instructions, which I will type out for one serving right here:
1 cup of water, 1 cup of milk/milk equivalent (I used vanilla soy, as I’m lactose intolerant), 1 tbsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of chai (I used the entire GM packet).

Boil water and sugar together in a saucepan until sugar dissolves into water. Into a syrup.
Add the chai, then simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the milk, simmering and stirring.
When it comes to a boil (be careful that it doesn’t boil over!), turn the heat off and let it sit for a long time. Like 7-10 minutes long. I let it sit for around 8-9 or so.
Strain and serve.

OH MY GOD. The mixture smelled AMAZING cooking. Seriously. It was like this fragrant warm beverage. Everything you ever think of when you think the word “chai.” It’s got a light brown color, and it smells delicious. And the taste is nothing short of amazing. I can taste all the spices individually, but they meld together. And amazingly enough, I am tasting a tea flavor as well. I can’t pick out green and black and whatnot, but I don’t think that’s the point of chai. It’s supposed to just be a nice and spicy and warn and delicious milky beverage. And that’s what I have right here. This would probably taste better without the nuttiness of the soy, but it does add an interesting dimension. I would definitely want to try this with my Very Vanilla Silk, which tastes like a vanilla milkshake. Mmmm.

I did get more than 8 oz. of chai… it was more like 12. So I have about a half-cup that’s going into the fridge to chill. And I bet that’ll taste amazing when it comes out.

Seriously, I’m so happy that I bit the bullet and actually made this a more proper and authentic way instead of steeping it normally and then just dumping milk into it. It tastes much deeper and well-rounded as a result. Full of flavor and deliciousness. I’m having a tea-gasm here. Can I tell you how it compares to other chais? Absolutely not. I think this one overall isn’t very aggressive with its spices. It’s more mellow and comforting. The only thing I regret is that I don’t have more of this GM blend to use!

Golden Moon Tea Sampler #4 selected at random

I was glad to see that nothing too delicate came up—-I was worried that this “pick” might be “white tea’s baby’s breath with airs of ethereal ephemera”. I do like a BIG taste and I fear that all subtlety is lost on me.

I would call this an “average” chai. It’s tasty,and spicy, as Chai should be, but not overwhelming. There is absolutely nothing to complain of, but I don’t find anything so memorable that I’m sitting up and wanting to proclaim the excellency of it.

I think that Golden Moon is for the advanced drinkers, the Zen drinkers, the sophisticates. Somebody said someplace that boddhisatvas could roam through hell as if it were a playground. And I think that advanced minds can really appreciate Golden Moon and its nuances. As for me, I can roam through a playground as if it were hell!

Let’s just call this one “Eau de Clove.” I steeped the sample (in its entirety) in water, and clove is all I could smell and taste. The taste didn’t linger like I wanted it to, either, and the dry mouth factor is on the high side. So ya, not a fan.

That said, I’m still tempted to put this on my shopping list and order it in a small size, because I feel like steeping it normally didn’t do it justice. I don’t have the patience to make proper chai, but I feel like if I did, it would have tasted much better and I would have rated it better. I am tempted to give it another chance.

Tea amount: Golden Moon sample size, one packet.
Water amount: 16oz./~475mL
Additives: 2 level tbsp. demerara sugar.

Golden Moon sample No. 28 of 31. The Kashmiri Chai at last! Made on the stovetop, sample packet = one cup of chai.

This is the fourth chai blend I’ve tried on the stovetop, and it’s so interesting to think about the differences between the various blends. The Rishi is quite peppery. This one doesn’t have pepper. I generally like pepper in chai, and have found some blends lacking for the lack of pepper. For whatever reason, I don’t find this one lacking. In fact, I think I may prefer it ever so slightly to the Rishi (not enough to rate it differently), or at least like it around the same, even though the Rishi is much spicier. Ok, but wait. I liked the Samovar chai best of all, and it has pepper.

I am concluding that comparisons don’t really work here. This is a nice chai. It’s smooth and tasty when made on the stovetop. True, its spices are somewhat subdued compared to others I’ve had, but it isn’t as though they’re overpowered by milk, which is my prime measure. Its body is a little lighter so it’s not as chewy as others I’ve enjoyed, but it’s still nice.

This is, as I think about it, pretty much the GM Pu-erh Chai, without the pu-erh earthiness. Not that that is, or should be, surprising. It’s still doesn’t beat the Samovar in my view or even come close, but I’d happily drink it for a change of pace when I feel like having chai but want something a little lighter weight.

It’s been a LONG week. I thought I would reward myself with something and about the time I was trying to figure out what my reward would be my son comes in and request chai. I have only made some chai’s using coffeemate chai creamer and I’m out right now so I dug into my GM sampler and pulled this one out.

I made it according to Takgoti’s chai recipe and it turned out wonderful and luckily it made enough to give him a huge mug and me a dainty cup. I am not usually really crazy over chai’s but I might have to purchase this one for those days when I need a chai. See picture here http://www.flickr.com/photos/48612840@N07/4546576793/

I do not have really any other chai’s besides one or two experiences to compare this one to but it was yummy so it’s going to get a high rating.

Thanks Takgoti for the recipe! :)

Okay, I liked this one so much that I sipped it down. I had never made chai on the stovetop before, so I looked in the tasting notes section for this tea. Luckily teaplz shared a method (http://steepster.com/teaplz/posts/20967) that seemed relatively easy. I used honey instead of sugar because it was easier to get to in the kitchen.

This is incredible this way! I’m so impressed that I’m upping the rating. There is so much flavor in this it’s amazing. I get more of the clove and pepper in this cup, but because of the milk and sugar it’s also round and sweet. There’s an almost savory quality to the aftertaste and the whole thing is calming, warming, amazing.

I probably should not be drinking this before bed, but I am so excited to try my new Golden Moon teas! (I’ll probably be up peeing every hour all night after all the tea I’ve had so far). Anyway, I made a quick/short-cut chai with this. I heated equal parts milk and super-concentrated tea and put them together with some honey. Probably not as good as the slow cook method of making chai, but this is still really good. I love the cardamon and the cloves. Can’t wait to make this the long way tomorrow morning…in larger quantities.